Saturday, March 24, 2012

Where is Paradise?

After the last day of the conference (Thursday), I stuck around Tokyo for two more days. Since if I went home the day after (Friday), I still won't be able to attend my class so I decided to go home on Sunday instead and to spend two days wandering around one of my dream destinations.

During my Friday stay, I met up with Sty-chan again. We went to Shibuya to have early lunch at Sweets Paradise.

CAKE HEAVEN!!!! Indeed my paradise!
The labels of the cakes were mostly written in katakana! Good thing I can read them (if I need to).

They offer a buffet of sweets and some savory food (like pasta and curry). You pay JPY1480 (~PhP780) and then you can stay to eat anything you want for 70 minutes. It may seem expensive if you convert it to peso (you can eat buffet at Yakimix or Sambokojin for ~PhP600 and they don't have a time limit nor are they limited to sweets, pasta and curry) but it's actually a pretty reasonable price considering that Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Going there at 10am (opening time) on a weekday was great because the cakes are still whole (not yet murdered, LOL) and there's not much people yet.

Pretty interiors

I was giggling the whole time because I've always wanted to eat at Sweets Paradise! And indeed, it was my paradise because I really love cake! (I don't eat cake all the time. I just feel happy whenever I eat cake!)

Happy cake-loving girl is happy.

Sweets Paradise actually mostly caters to girls but as if Sty-chan cares. He just wants his food. :))

Logicom bonding LOL!

It was a great experience. The time limit actually helped in reducing the calorie-intake. I also like the fact that they serve curry and pasta so that if you're hungry (as I was), you can put something on your tummy first before digging into the cakes.

Pasta and curry were actually good!

Coffee, many kinds of tea, soda, ginger ale. You can make snow cone with the red machine (ice cube slicer) there!

Overall, I love Sweets Paradise. Their cakes were mostly sponge cakes with not-so-sweet whipped cream. There also have pudding, cheesecakes, snow-cone, soft ice cream and frozen yogurt. Not much variety but it's pretty much reasonable.

Blunder: Sty-chan and I left our plates on the table. We both forgot that in Japan (and in other countries too), you clean up your own plates. Oh well, gaijin (Japanese word for "foreigners"). Haha.

Suntory melon pop (soda). It tastes good except I don't really like soda. We placed them in colored cups. They look like aliens! :)) I still prefer Suntory ginger ale.

We also went to Shibuya 109, a very famous department store. Small land area but it had eight floors. Totally different from the malls here in the Philippines (huge land area with usually three floors). A lot of boutiques and almost everything was expensive! Well, except for the winter clothes which were on sale because winter was ending (but it's not like I can use those winter clothes when I get back home).

I just don't understand myself why I didn't buy that pretty gray satchel on sale (JPY2000, it was actually cheap!) Maybe my kuripot self was kicking in. Also, maybe, I was too concerned with my [already big and heavy] luggage. Or, maybe because I forgot my most of my money at the hotel haha.

And then we went to H&M where I got three shirts as pasalubong for my brothers and for my dad. Apparently, in Japan, imported stuff like H&M and Forever21 are cheaper than their local brands. But I think that's understandable because F21 and H&M clothes are made in China, in Vietnam or in the Philippines, where labor and materials are cheap. On the other hand, clothes made in Japan (labor and materials) must be very expensive! But for me, that's still reasonable considering how Japanese brand clothes are so unique. F21 and H&M stuff are just too common. (This is the reason why I came out of the six-floor F21 and the four-floor H&M stores without buying anything for myself.)

Unfortunately, Sty had to go because he had part-time work so I just went to Harajuku (AGAIN!) But here are some of my last shots of the world's largest pedestrian crossing at around 4pm on a weekday.

This is not yet rush hour. It's honestly difficult NOT to bump into anyone while crossing the street!

Does anyone remember the Resident Evil 4 movie? The first scene was shot here. Mika Nakashima played the role of the first zombie (which created a zombie outbreak). It was also raining during that scene! Haha!